


beatitudinem maximus

by distractionpie



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Magic, Teenage Drama, and a bonus liebgott chapter, now with minor edits, originally on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-09 18:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12282366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: When a botched cheer-up charm has David's entire charms study group suddenly infatuated with him, Joseph Liebgott is the one person acting blessedly normal.Joe would like everybody to know that he did nothing to deserve this.





	1. Webster

It happens in their charms study group

They’re supposed to be practising cheer-up charms because they’re always on the exam, and no matter what Hoobler might claim to the contrary it’s his shaky charms ability and not Webster’s default emotional state that is causing the spell to fail. Webster understands his frustration, but that’s still no excuse for what Hoobler does next, tacking the word ‘maximus’ onto the end of the incantation -not even proper Latin!- as he makes his wand motion extra exuberant, with far more flourishes than they’d ever been taught.

There’s a flash and a bang and Webster gets knocked clear off his chair.

He’s more shocked than in pain, the air knocked right out his chest but little more damage than that done, still it’s only years of friendship with Hoobler that keep him from voicing his vexation as he starts to pick himself up off of the dusty classroom floor. Getting knocked on his ass in front of so many of his peers is never going to be an experience he looks forward to.

He’s flattered and comforted when Christenson on the next row across practically jumps over his desk to help, but surprised Garcia and Miller are right behind him to help Webster up. Plus the hand on his ass hardly seems necessary to support him despite how off balance he feels.

Renee, a seventh-year student who supervises the study group and who has always wanted to be a healer, is quick to check Webster over thoroughly, running her hands gently through his hair to check for cuts, all the while Hoobler is babbling apologies.

Web, who has been Hoobler’s partner since first year in every class that Ravenclaw and Gryffindor share is shocked - not by being knocked off his chair, that’s a pretty regular occurrence when Hoob tries to go off-book, but by the fact that anybody is reacting at all for the first time since that incident in third year with the skrewts and the growing charm that ended with Webster begging to be transferred out of Care of Magical creatures and into any other class. Ridiculous accidents caused by Web taking out spell books too advanced for him and Hoob attempting new spells without a professor to teach him the right prononciations and techniques first are a regular background occurrence that everybody at Hogwarts is used to.

“-because I love you and I’m so sorry.”

“Wait, what?!” Webster’s head snaps up, looking at Hoob in puzzlement. It’s not that Hoob isn’t his friend and that Web doesn’t love him like a brother, but it’s weird enough for Hoob to be apologising and not just encouraging him to get back up so Hoob can try again and they don’t say that sort of mushy thing.

“I love you,” Hoobler repeats, “David-”

“No,” Christenson says. “Don’t listen to him. I love you more than anything David, I’d never hurt you like that.”

Web shakes his head, wondering if he hit his head harder than he thought. Love and people calling him David - this morning has turned weird beyond belief.

Several other people were crowding around Webster as he stepped back only to crash into Shifty, who wraps his arms around David to support him.

“Careful there,” he says, causing Talbert to stand and glare.

What the hell?

“He doesn’t need your hands on him,” Tab snaps, knocking Shifty’s hands from Webster only to replace them with his own.

Across the room, Liebgott turns in his chair from where he’d been talking with Skinny on the row behind, and makes a very loud sound of disgust.

He stands, chair scraping noisily across the bare stone floor and says, “Back. Off.”

Nobody moves.

Liebgott scowls, pushing through the crowd until he’s at Webster’s side and wrapping one hand around his upper arm. He’s got a firm grip for someone with such slim hands. “Clearly Hoobler’s spell went stupid,” he announces to the room at large, and then says to David, “Let’s go find Professor Winters.”

Johnny Martin also pushes his way forward, resting his hand on Webster’s other shoulder. “David doesn’t want to go with you, right David?” he looks at Webster with wide adoring eyes and Web sidesteps towards Liebgott, feeling vaguely uncomfortable at this uncharacteristic closeness.

With the lightning flash draw of a skilled duellist, Liebgott pulls out his wand, it’s tip sparking as he jabs it threateningly in Martin’s direction.

“I… I think I might have hit my head,” Web cuts in hurriedly. He knows he didn’t, and from the frown he can see on Renee’s face she’s thinking of pointing out that she saw no such thing when she checked his head. “I feel a little dizzy, I think I need some room.”

The lie is more magical than anything he could have done with his wand. Immediately the group backs up and the space they make around Webster also results in a pathway being cleared to the door. Liebgott tugs his arm, hard enough that Webster wouldn’t be surprised to find finger-grip bruises later, and normally he’d complain about the rudeness of it but in light of the situation Webster allows himself to be dragged until the charms classroom door slams shut behind them.

“You’re not actually gonna pass out on me, are you?” Liebgott checks. If Webster didn’t know him better he’d think that Liebgott sounded concerned - as it is he supposes Liebgott is worried that he’ll be blamed if a teacher stumbled upon him levitating Webster’s unconscious body down the hall.

Webster shakes his head. “No, I’m fine. I just wanted to get out of there. Everybody was being really weird.”

“Urgh, Martin would be disgusted if he knew how he was acting right now,” Lieb complains as he tugs Webster and down the hall, and doesn’t lower his wand until they reach Winters’ office door and he apparently decides it's his wand hand he wants to free up to knock rather than the one that's hanging on to Webster.

‘Love charms,’ Professor Winters says, when they explain what happened. ‘they aren’t as effective as love potions; the effects should wear off within a few hours’ - although apparently the fact the spell went wrong makes the effects unpredictable. “Since the spell was accidental, I’m afraid it would take longer to figure out how to reverse it than it would to wait for it to wear off. It shouldn’t be more than a small nuisance, although if you go to the hospital wing I’m sure Mr. Lipton would be happy to let you wait it out in one of the recovery rooms.”

Webster nods, but Liebgott doesn’t look pleased by this answer.

“What sort of professor can’t reverse a simple spell,” he grumbles as they walk out, “Honestly, how did he get to be a professor if he can’t undo something by Hoobler.”

Webster turns to head down the stairs, ignoring Lieb’s remarks because he knows that Winters is normally one of Liebgott’s favourite professors.

“Where are you going?” Liebgott says, grabbing Webster’s arm again and making him stumble on the stairs. “Professor Winters said to go to the hospital wing.”

“I thought you were maligning his competence,” Webster points out, “Anyway, he only said I _could_ go to the hospital wing, but I’m not sick, I don’t need to lie down.”

“Well you can’t go back to your common room, half of the study group is in Ravenclaw and they’ll be headed back there soon, you’d get mobbed for sure. Idiot.”

Webster bites his lip, he wants to snap back but at the same time he’s relieved that Lieb is acting just like usual despite all the weirdness. He might be an asshole, but he’s a reliable one and right now Lieb’s harshness is a reassuring in its contrast to the others’ unnatural affection.

“Only you would be so stupid as to get yourself love spelled with an entire room,” Liebgott continues and, comforting or not, Webster can’t hold back his response to that.

“Stupid?” he objects, “I didn’t even do anything, I just sat there.”

“Exactly,” Liebgott says, wand sparking again as he gesticulates, “Why didn’t you ducking- fuck!”

Web blinked and raised his eyebrows. “Are you alright?”

“Fuck off,” Liebgott mutters. “Hoobler must be the next dark lord to have the power to convince a whole room full of people that they’re in love with you.”

Webster winces. It wasn’t like he’d failed to notice that Liebgott reacted badly to his presence, not when Joe was so loudly vocal in expressing his irritation at being subjected to a ‘stuffy know-it-all’ with ‘all of the charm of a flobberworm’ and ‘a face like a… a stupid faced thing’, but there was a difference between Liebgott finding him, personally disagreeable and accusing him of being unlovable.

Deciding that the only thing he can do about Liebgott’s attitude is ignore it he says, “People will be going to the great hall too, so I can’t get lunch.” Not that David hadn’t skipped plenty of lunches to study - but he usually didn’t do so on the same days that he’d overslept and missed breakfast.

“Whine, whine, whine,” Liebgott bitches with a roll of his eyes. “So get something from the kitchens, it won’t be as fancy but you’re not gonna starve to death.”

“We can get in the kitchens?”

Liebgott stares at him. “I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be smart,” he complains. “How have you lived here five years and not found the kitchens?”

“Why would you be going in the kitchens when we get all our meals served to us?”

“What, have you never wanted something to eat outside of mealtimes?” Liebgott says, like Webster is stupid or something. In the moment, Web kind of feels like he is - of course he’d wanted to eat outside of mealtimes, but it had never occurred to him that there was anything he could do about it.

“So where are they?” Webster asks.

For a moment it looks like Liebgott is going to be petty and not tell him, it’s exactly the sort of behaviour Web has come to expect from him, but then he shrugs and says, “Downstairs, obviously. I’ll show you the portrait otherwise you’ll end up wandering around there all day.”

Web would be annoyed at getting patronised, but in this case he can admit that it’s probably true. He still finds shortcuts and passages he’d never come across before every few months, and if he hasn’t stumbled across the kitchens yet he doubts they’re anywhere obvious.

Liebgott keeps bitching as they make their way down, past the entrance hall and in the direction Hufflepuffs go when they’re headed to their common room, if the kitchen is nearby that would explain Lieb finding it, and Webster listens half-heartedly. “-seeing as Shifty and Tab keep sneaking off to Hogsmeade together I’m pretty sure they’ll be pissed when they find out they were fighting each other over you.”

“I don’t think Shifty gets angry,” Webster remarks, “But I see your point.” Like Martin, the affection from Tab had just been jarring and weird, although he’d have mistaken Shifty’s closeness for friendship if it weren’t for the others making it clear something strange is going on.

As they’re wandering down a corridor Web has never seen before, they run into Skinny. He must have gone straight towards his common room while they were talking with professor Winters to get here before them, but he waves when he sees them.

“Hey, Web,” Skinny says, “Is your head feeling better?”

“Huh?” It takes a moment to remember his lie. “Oh right, charms.”

“Right,” Skinny says, frowning slightly. “Are you having memory problems? You did go to the hospital wing, right?”

Webster shook his head. “No, I feel fine. I spoke to professor Winters, he said everyone should feel back to normal by dinner, and if anyone was still acting oddly tomorrow to come back to him.”

“You went to Winters for a head injury?” Skinny asked.

“No, about the spell effects,” Webster says, “C’mon, you saw how weird everyone was being.”

Skinny nods. “Yeah, they did seem a bit… forward. What did Hoobler cast, a truth spell or something?”

“A truth-” Liebgott snorts incredulously. “More like the opposite.”

“A lie spell?” Skinny asks. “I didn’t know they were a thing.”

“A love spell,” Webster corrects. He’d been trying not to think about it, the thought of the magically created affection making him uncomfortable and the way that Liebgott and now Skinny talked about the idea of the others having feelings for him was just embarrassing. Sure, all of them at once being overcome by interest in him was weird, but was it really so hard to believe that anybody could feel that way about him?

Skinny’s frown deepens. “Huh,” he says. “Well, I suppose everybody confessing at once like that was a bit… unlikely. I’m glad you’re feeling better though.”

“Thanks,” Web says, flattered that Skinny at least thought the weirdness was everybody being in love with him at once rather than acting like it was such an outlandish thing for anybody to want him at all.

Grinning, sudden and almost alarmingly bright, Skinny says, “Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me this Saturday?”

Webster blinks. “Don’t you have quidditch practise?” He doesn’t really follow the quidditch teams’ training schedule but Christenson had been complaining for days that it wasn’t fair that Hufflepuff kept beating them to the weekend slots, leaving Ravenclaw to practise after classes and in the dark.

“I can skip once,” Skinny says with an easy laugh, “We’re weeks away from our next match, and anyway, it’s only Slytherin and all of their best players graduated last year so they’re no threat.”

“Well…”

“No!” Liebgott interrupts, and oh… if looks could kill then they’d need to be rushing Skinny to the hospital wing right about then.

Surprisingly, Skinny glares right back. It’s a strange look to see on his face, he’s normally so even-tempered, his friendship with Liebgott founded on the fact that Skinny was one of the few people unphased by Joe’s tempestuous moods.

“Webster can come to Hogsmeade with me if he wants,” Skinny says, “It’s none of your business.”

“No, he can’t,” Liebgott snaps. “I mean… no, you can’t skip quidditch practise!”

Oh, of course. Liebgott was on the quidditch team too and Web knew he was aggressively committed to the idea that the cup would go to Hufflepuff this year, he steps back, reassured that Liebgott’s anger is about quidditch and not anything to do with him.

Web sort of tunes out the rest of their argument, he’s never really got quidditch and he’s pretty sure anything he could say on the matter would make things worse not better.

In fact, as the argument gets more heated, he starts to inch his way down the corridor. In the years he’s been at Hogwarts he’s seen three punch-ups over quidditch, and while all of those had been about the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry he’s now getting slightly concerned he’s about to see the first intra-house quidditch related brawl.

He’s reached the end of the corridor, and is trying to decide if he should wait for the fight to end or edge around the corner so he’s out of the line of fire should hexes start flying when Liebgott yells, “Well I don’t give a fuck. Miss practise, get kicked off the team, hold Webster’s hand in Honeydukes and push sticky fingered third-years out of the way to get him the best chocolate, it’s your stupid life!” and comes storming after Webster.

“The kitchen is down here,” he growls, turning left and then stopping in front of a boring painting of a fruit bowl. “You just have to tickle the pear.”

“Tickle the-?” It sounds absurd but Liebgott’s touch has the pear in the painting turning into a handle.

The kitchens looked exactly like the sort of kitchens a place like Hogwarts would need, huge and bustling, the whole place lined with stoves covering in pots and pans being tended to by busy looking house-elves. Webster immediately felt like an intruder, he’d never been comfortable with the idea of house-elves and he’d certain never spoken to one, but Liebgott didn’t hesitate to wave to one of the elves near the door, calling out, “Hey, Pipsey, can we get some lunch over here when you’ve got a minute!” and not thirty seconds later the elf is bustling over to them with a plate of breads, meat, and cheeses.

Taking the plate, Liebgott guides Webster to a small table in the side of the kitchen that the elves aren’t using and sits down. Despite his friendly tone to the house elf he still looks annoyed and Webster finds himself suddenly overcome by the urge to take Liebgott’s mind off of quidditch and fighting.

“Do you think Skinny really likes me?” he said, considering the prospect as he puts the meat and bread together in an improvised sandwich. Even ignoring the spells effects, it was a much less disconcerting than the others. He got on well with Skinny and Web supposed he was attractive, even if he did have a bit of a baby-face and Webster had never considered him in that was before.

“Hoobler’s stupid love spell, remember,” Liebgott points out, vicious tone suggesting he might need more than a little distraction.

“No, he was sitting at the back behind you and you weren’t affected,” Webster says. It was really quite interesting - he’d always liked magical theory and the limitations of a spell’s reach and the factors influencing that was something he’d been quite disappointed to find out they didn’t learn at Hogwarts.

“Who says it works on a fixed radius?” Liebgott says. “After all, it was a botched spell.”

Webster considered that for a moment, but then shakes his head. “No, I’m pretty sure it was, the people who were nearest to me were definitely acting more obviously weird.”

“All seemed pretty weird to me,” Liebgott mutters.

“If not the spell radius then what are you suggesting, that you’re incapable of suddenly falling in love with me even with magic, even though everybody else did?”

“Something like that,” Liebgott says, with a glower so foreboding that Webster finds himself shutting his mouth with a firm click of teeth and only opening it again for food.

Lieb ditches him after lunch, his pity at Webster’s current predicament apparently exhausted, or maybe he’s going to argue with Skinny some more. Webster spends most of the afternoon tucked away in the library and skips dinner in favour of finishing his transfiguration essay. He’s a little anxious heading back to the dorms but when he gets their Hoobler offers a much more normal apology for the whole incident and everybody else just seems embarrassed by their displays.

He sleeps soundly but wakes early, hungry from his missed meal the previous night. He doesn’t bother waking the others, just dresses in his uniform -minus the tie since the professors aren’t too strict at breakfast- and heads down to the great hall.

There were a few other people there, mostly half-asleep or focused intently on their meals, but Web spots Skinny sitting at the Hufflepuff table and realises he’d never given Skinny an answer about going to Hogsmeade, the argument about quidditch practise derailing the whole conversation.

Webster knows what he had to say.

He likes Skinny, he is a great friend and easy to get along with, but that isn’t enough.  He’d thought about it half the evening and he just couldn’t imagine how dating him would differ from their friendship. There was no spark, no push, Skinny was chill with no interest in challenge Webster the way he needed to be if things between them were to be interesting and exciting

“About you asking me to Hogsmeade…”

Skinny cringes. “Yeah, sorry about that. Hoobler’s stupid love spell… if he could replicate it then he’d have a wicked prank on his hands.”

“It was the spell?” Web says.

“Well, yeah,” Skinny’s eyes go wide and he looks uncomfortable. “Wait, you didn’t think it was, that I was really…?”

Webster shakes his head, trying to mask his embarrassment. “I thought it was odd,” he says, only half lying, “But I wasn’t sure because you were sitting outside the range of the spell, but maybe it didn’t work in such a logical way in who it reached…”

“Outside of the range?” Skinny cocks his head, considering. Web suspected Skinny often tuned him out when he was talking about magical theory but some of it might have sunk in because he asks, “What makes you think there was a range? Accidental magic is usually so messy.”

“Liebgott wasn’t affected,” Webster says. “And he was sat in front of you, so I’m surprised you were.”

“Not affected? I thought being able to see if somebody was charmed or not was post-N.E.W.T level stuff, have you really been reading that far ahead?”

Web wishes he were, but no… “I know he couldn’t have been affected because he wasn’t acting like he was in love with me. He wasn’t acting any different at all.”

“Oh,” Skinny says. A moment later he laughs, but there’s something in his delay that makes Webster frown.

“Are you saying that he was affected by the love spell, but it didn’t make him act any different?” David asks, mind whirring. “Do you mean that’s how Lieb acts when he…-”

“I think if you say anything to him, he’ll freak out and hex you,” Skinny cuts in, which is as good as a yes.

Webster frowns, thinking it over. He knows all too well that Lieb is good with aggressive spellcasting, and defence has never been Webster’s strongest subject since Professor Speirs grades them entirely on their practical work not essays, if Lieb really does freak out and try and hex him it’s probably not going to end well for him. But the feeling that had been missing when Skinny asked him to Hogsmeade hit him full force in the chest when the thought about the possibility of Liebgott liking him - his stomach flipping and his heart pounding like it might burst right out of his chest. There’d never been any signs that he’d seen, but he’d never understood Liebgott all that well so maybe he’d been looking for all the wrong things.

“Web?” Skinny says, and Webster reaches into his bag to grab his wand and slip into his pocket for easier access. He’s fairly sure he couldn’t win a duel against Liebgott, but he’d getting decent enough grades in defence that he should be able to hold his own long enough to get some talking done provided Joe doesn’t take him out before he has time to draw.

“I think it’s time and Liebgott had a real talk,” he says. “Do you know where he is?”

“The quidditch pitch, he likes to fly in the mornings,” Skinny says, and Webster turns towards the exit. “Wait! Seriously Web, he’ll kick your ass!”

“Probably,” Webster calls over his shoulder, and he’s not sure why he’s grinning but he can’t quick clear his face of it.  “And if he cares that much, then I want to know about it.”

As he steps out into the hall, he hears Skinny groaning _‘oh merlin, he’s gonna die’_ behind him, but he remembers the way Lieb grabbed his arm after the spell, the only one in the room trying to help, and as much as Skinny knows Lieb well, Webster thinks he might be all wrong about this.


	2. Liebgott

There are a lot of things in Joe’s life that frustrate him, but if there’s one thing that he is grateful for it’s that David Webster is the dumbest smart person that he has ever met.

Joe has a lot of talents but he’s never been much of a liar, has been told more than once that he keeps his emotions written all over his face. His mother can read him like an open book, and over the years his friends have become nearly as good at it.

Everybody in the fifth year Hufflepuff dorms knows what he thinks about David Webster (Skinny had pulled him aside with an embarrassed expression one morning the previous year and asked if Joe knew that he talked in his sleep) and a fair number of their other classmates have figured it out. But David Webster is utterly, jaw-droppingly oblivious.

He’d worried for a moment when he’d seen the effects of the charms accident yesterday that things might finally become too obvious for even Webster to miss, but his concerns had been unfounded. Instead he’d been damned with the knowledge that a spell that brought out so much love that it had people falling over themselves like idiots hadn’t changed the slightest thing about his feelings or his actions.

He’d seethed, seeing their stupid classmates putting their hands all over Webster and Webster _letting_ them, while Joe had been struggling to resist him for what sometimes felt like forever. But the worst of it was Skinny’s flirting, when he of all people ought to know better. Joe knew Hoobler’s stupid spell was to blame for Skinny’s interest, but he still felt like knowing how Joe felt should have been enough to convince Skinny to control himself, and so Joe had drawn the curtains tight around his bed last night and sulked and this morning slipped out for flying practice before Skinny could get out more than a quick ‘Good Morning?’

The wind in his face soothes his temper but it’s not enough. Normally the sky is his escape from thoughts of Webster, Joe leaves his heavy thoughts on the ground when he flies, but this morning that just doesn’t seem to be cutting it.

He shifts his broom upwards, rising until he’s well above the height of the stands, far further than he’d need to during a game, but it’s still not enough to escape the troubles he knows await him on the ground. He ponders for a moment, then takes a deep breath and tips himself forward into a steep dive.

For a moment the world falls away, the wind roaring in his ears as he grips the broom tightly between his thighs and fights to keep control of his course as the ground rushes up to meet him. Joe pulls up at the last second he dares, heart hammering in his throat as reorients himself after the sharp ninety degree turn. A seeker he is not, but he’d confident in saying that that was a hell of a dive, far lower to the ground that most other student players would have dared gone, and he can feel an exhilarated grin split his face.

Apparently, he’s not the only one who thinks it was an impressive display. From off in the stands he can hear the quiet sound of clapping. He spins in mid-air, scanning the stands and seeing nobody. It takes him a moment of searching, but eventually he does spot the blue-clad figure standing on the side of the pitch looking up at him.

Webster.

For a moment Joe contemplates pretending not to have noticed him or admitting that he’d noticed him and then ignoring him anyway. It’s not like there’s much he could do about it. It’s been years since their first year flying lessons but Joe has a vague recollection of Webster not being particularly gifted on a broomstick so even if he did get it into his head to follow Joe into the air Joe could certainly outfly him.

Avoiding him forever, though, might present a problem. Hogwarts was a big castle, but it wasn’t that big. At least the quidditch pitch leant them a little privacy. If Webster had tracked him down in the hallways thing could have been a lot more awkward.

He swoops across the pitch until he’s hovering in front of Webster, further off the ground than is entirely polite for a conversation but he likes the height advantage it gives him. “What are you doing here?” he asks, unable to keep the words from coming out petulant.

He’s hoping that Webster’s answer is going to be ‘getting some fresh air’ or looking for one of the Ravenclaw team, Joe has seen a few of them flying first thing in the morning too, but it appears luck isn’t on his side because Webster’s answer is, “Looking for you.”

Joe scowls, because it’s just like Webster to say the exactly opposite of whatever it is Joe wants to hear. “Oh yeah, why?”

“I wanted to... ah... thank you,” he says, and the slight flush of pink in Webster’s cheeks has Joe gripping his broom handle a little tighter. “For yesterday, I mean.”

“If you’d actually asked about it I’m sure some of your housemates must have been able to tell you where the kitchen is,” Joe says dismissively. Certainly the seventh years must be getting fuel for their all-night study sessions somewhere.

Webster wrinkles his nose. “I didn’t mean for _that_ ,” he said. “I mean for helping me get out of study group after things went wrong, and not being weird.”

Shit. The last thing Joe needs is for Webster to start back on the path of thinking about the fact that Joe was the only person not acting different after the love spell and start wondering why - he might be oblivious but if all the evidence was laid out in front of him even Webster might be able to put it together. Joe considers for a moment and then guides himself down, landing and shouldering his broom before he answers. “Really? ‘Cause knowing where the kitchens are is pretty useful. Especially since you’re skipping breakfast again and who knows what trouble your stupid friends will get you into this afternoon.”

“Hoob isn’t stupid,” Webster says, bristling. Joe is disgusted by the warm fluttering in his belly at Webster’s protectiveness of his friends, but the fact he doesn’t want to be feeling it doesn’t make the nice feeling go away.

‘ _Stupid enough to be friends with you,’_ hangs on the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back at the last minute and says, “If he’d done it on purpose that would have been a hell of a spell.”

Webster, Merlin help them all, _smiles_ at him and Joe has to bite hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling back. It was disgustingly unfair that Webster had ended up with that face and that mouth and the power to make all sorts of stupid feelings go haywire in Joe’s chest.

“Whatever,” he huffs, “Was that all that you wanted?” It seems to him like a stupid-ass reason to come all the way down to the quidditch pitch, especially on a cold winter morning, but Webster never has made much sense and seems unperturbed by the way his breath is misting with each exhalation. He doesn’t even have a robe on over his sweater, never mind a cloak!

“I’m serious,” Webster says and now he’s fucking pouting of all things. Joe is going to get back on his broom and fly right into the lake, it would be better than staying here for this. “It was a really weird experience and even when the spell made everyone so interested in me you were the only one who really seemed to care if I was okay-”

“I didn’t care!” Joe says, and he knows he sounds defensive but he really doesn’t like where Web is going with that. He’d left his wand in the changing rooms, even though he hadn’t been practising with bludgers removing it to fly was a deeply ingrained habit, but now he feels the absence of it sorely. His fingers are twitching to cast a silencing spell.

“Really? You know, I’ve never heard of a spell hitting a whole group of people and leaving just one person unaffected.”

Joe swallows. Webster is looking at him intensely, the kind of focus in his eyes that reminds him that as much as Webster can usually be relied upon to act like an oblivious twit he did get sorted into Ravenclaw for a reason. “I thought you said it was a radius thing, because I was sat near the back,” he bluffs.

Webster shakes his head. “I talked to Skinny. It was the spell that made him ask me to Hogsmeade, and he was sat behind you.”

Shit. That better have been all Skinny said to him about it or Joe is going to hex him until he’s in the hospital wing puking slugs for a week. And put itching power in his sheets when he finally gets out. “Maybe he’s just more susceptible,” Joe says.

“You know, I couldn’t go to Hogsmeade on Saturday anyway,” Webster says. “Professor Sobel always sets us at least three chapters of arithmancy reading every Friday and I like to get it finished right away.”

“Uh, okay?” Joe says. He’s partly relieved that Webster has dropped the subject of the spell and partly just confused by the subject change. Mostly he’s glad he’s not taking arithmancy - three chapters, what the fuck?

“So maybe after you're done with quidditch practise and I’m done with homework we could... hang out? It’ll be dark by four pm but nobody is going to be doing astronomy homework on a Hogsmeade day, so we could go there.”

Urgh. How could anybody _possibly_ be that stupid? Everybody -except apparently Webster- knew that when the astronomy tower wasn’t in use for classes or study sessions it was a place for couples to go for some privacy. Anyway, “Why would I want to do that?”

“I know you like me,” Webster says. “I’m not stupid.”

Joe freezes. Webster can’t _know_. He just can’t. Joe hasn’t endured all of third and fourth year with his insides electrifying every time that goofy nerd shared a class with him or came to one of his quidditch games (cheering for the other goddamn team no less), keeping his cool when Webster had come back at the start of fifth year four inches taller than he’d been at the start of the summer and the first person in their year capable of growing facial hair that wasn’t a patchy mess of peach fuzz, coping the O-grade mess that yesterday was - not for it to end like this.

He scoffs. It’s unconvincing even to his own ears but: “Web, I talk shit about you all the time. I don’t like you.”

Webster shakes his head. “No, I’ve been thinking about yesterday and it all makes sense. I thought you always acted like a jackass me, but yesterday you talked like a jackass but acted like you cared. And yesterday you were behaving just like you always do.”

“Like you pay so much attention to how I act?” Joe says. He spends enough time watching Webster that he sure as shit would have noticed Webster returning his attention. And if Webster had been paying attention he wouldn’t only just be catching on.

“I was watching you just then,” Webster says. “You’re a really good flier, aren’t you?”

“I’m on the quidditch team, so yeah,” Joe retorts.

Webster pulls a face. “Quidditch is all throwing at catching and too much going on to watch one person. But just then you looked really good. Or, well, at least so far as I can judge seeing as I haven’t been on a broom since I broke my nose in flying lessons in first year.”

Ah! Now Joe remembers it. He’s pretty sure he’d laughed because that was the sort of thing you did when you were eleven and somebody made a fool of themselves, but he’d always figured that Webster must have mastered the basics some other time. Half the joy of being a wizard was in flying. He’s stuck by one of the stupid urges he sometimes gets, mind suddenly filled with thoughts of offering Webster lessons - putting his hands all over Webster to correct his grip and his posture and whatever other flaws that had led to that failed accidental barrel roll all those years ago, or maybe taking Webster up to show him how it felt like done right, Webster pressed up against him and clinging as Joe showed off just how gifted he was.

Webster clears his throat. “Do you know how I really know you like me?” he says, in a tone that’s gratingly smug.

“I don’t-” know, or have any plans of admitting to any liking.

“Because if you didn’t like me you’d have just walked away by now instead of getting all wound up about it.”

It’s terrible logic. There are a million other reasons that explained his actions and didn’t back up Webster’s arguments, and Joe is about to list them all one by one when Webster kisses him.

It’s dreadful. Joe’s face is numb from the wind and cold of his flight and he's suddenly acutely aware of how his broom is digging into his shoulder; Webster still has his hands hanging awkwardly by his sides and has angled his head all weird so their noses are mashed together uncomfortably. Joe’s been waiting pretty much since the onset of puberty for this and it is _so bad._

Webster pulls away.

He’s frowning.

That’s when Joe realises he hadn’t kissed back.

David Webster -whose eyes matched his house colours in a way that made him look unfairly good all of the time, with the hair that Joe has been dream of getting to touch for a depressingly long time, and whose lips had been responsible for at least 50% of Joe’s sexual awakening- had just kissed him and Joe had just stood there, like a lump, and utterly failed to take advantage of or even properly appreciate the situation. Even that kind of awful kiss might have been salvageable if he’d put a bit of work into it, but now Webster looks embarrassed and Joe thinks he might be hyperventilating, and oh Merlin, none of them should be doing any of this before coffee.

Or maybe Webster has had coffee. That would certainly explain why his left eye has started twitching alarmingly.

“Or maybe you don’t like me,” Webster says, words coming out so fast that they blur into one. “That’s fine. Skinny must have been mistaken or I misread things. I’m sorry, I-”

Joe drops his broom and kisses him.

It’s not perfect, but it’s better.

That’s fine, they can practise. After all, Webster did invite him up to the astronomy tower after dark.


End file.
